We abhor the failure of Dublin City Council (DCC) to find funding to continue the contract of the Cycling Officer. We understand that the Cycling Officer’s position has been funded up to now by the Department of the Environment, Communications and Local Government, but this contract ceases on January 5th.

A Cycling Officer is needed not only to represent the interests of the increasing number of Dubliners who already cycle, but to rapidly increase modal share, by-

As an engineer, counteracting the mindset of roads engineers who have been trained in outmoded, car-based transport principles;

Publicly promoting cycling, as done very successfully with the recent family-oriented Sky Ride, when 10,000 Dubliners took to their bikes in the city and gave an enthusiastic response.

We in the Campaign have developed an excellent working relationship with the current Officer, but all citizens can see the tangible results. Due to bigger cycling numbers, Dublin’s streets are now quieter, less congested and, most importantly, safer for ALL road users.

The background to this issue is the mystifying way transport has developed in Ireland:

How is it that our roads have been made unsafe for kids to cycle to school, when over 300,000 of our children are overweight or obese?

How is it that, with car ownership now costing over €10,000 per year, and a crazy 40% of short trips being made by car, we’re not energetically pushing this low-cost transport mode?

Why is our Department of the Environment apparently reducing funding, when research published last week showed that high cycling numbers could make a huge dent in Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions?

Are we really content to simply continue to sit in traffic jams? A Dublin Underground is not going to materialise any time soon. Cycling is a quick, easy, very cheap answer to congestion.

It’s clear (and it’s in the Government’s own Cycle Policy Framework) that there should be not only a Dublin Cycling Officer, but a Cycling Tsar or team at Government level, and one in every Local Authority in the State. Departments of Health and Children, Transport, Tourism and Sport, and Environment all bear responsibility here. Yes, budgets are tight, but with a 20 to 1 return on investment in cycling (the huge health benefits to the population allow immense savings), it’s crazy to penny-pinch one key professional’s salary.

Indeed, we would be very interested to see DCC’s cost/benefit analysis of the decision to end this contract, given that its Transportation division expenditure was €73 million for 2010, and the Dublin Bikes scheme alone brings in €400,000. Funding is not the problem here, it’s ill-informed and regressive thinking.

I’m not sure whether all my readers are aware of Movember – the global grass roots charity that aims to promote men’s health by growing a moustache in November. The moustache is called a Mo, and November thus becomes Movember.

It’s a cool movement and it has done tremendously well in Ireland.

Last year, Movember Ireland raised over EUR 1.6 million. The funds were used, amongst others, to build research centres for prostate cancer in Trinity College. The funds keep several staff employed there full time now. And this is just one of many concrete examples of how Movember has changed the face of men’s health.

With this blog, I’m urging you – all my readers – to generously help this great charity again this year. And: I’m also urging you to have some good cycling fun at the same time. You can help in the battle against prostate cancer this year by joining the Movember cycle tour:

The event takes place on the 28th of November, starts at GreenAer (12a Magennis Place, just off Pearse St.) at 14.00, and ends in the city centre at 17.00. Cyclists with a convincing ‘rugged outfit’ have a chance to win great prizes as well. If you can’t make the cycle tour, feel free to donate to the folks cycling for charity.

Let’s show the world our appetite for doing good is even bigger this year than last.

If we succeed, I imagine the Movember folks might reward us with an even longer period of fundraising in 2012, having us start in October already, growing beards instead of moustaches, calling it Octobeard.

What you see here, is a Chinese bookkeeper presenting an article (the picture was taken by my friends Aude and Willem, who found the book in a Shanghai bookshop and were thrilled to read familiar English, after months of unintelligible Chinese characters).

The article explains how significant cycling is for Chinese culture. If you zoom in, you should be able to read the article – and learn how back in the 1970s, the bicycle was one of the three most prized possessions of Chinese families (together with: their sowing machine and wrist watch). The article states: “If someone lost a bicycle, the public security bureau would handle the case with great force”.

I repeat: “force”.

I wonder what would happen if the Gardai took a similar approach to bike theft in Dublin. I mean: nobody would want to be on the wrong end of that investigation, right?

Of course, China has changed since the 1970s. However, that bikes continue to be prized possessions in China can be seen in the 2 pictures below: diamond frame bicycles on display in an upmarket art gallery in Shanghai.

I wonder what the Chinese public bureau would do if that one got stolen?